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It’s not every day you witness a shift, from passive listening to active design thinking, from questions to confidence. That’s exactly what happened during the GEF Expanded Constituency Workshop (ECW) for Central Africa, held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in April 2025. ECWs are regional platforms that bring together GEF focal points, civil society, agencies, and other partners to share experiences, build capacity, and strengthen country engagement with GEF policies and programming.

Doreen Robinson is Chief for Wildlife at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and coordinator of the new GEF Congo Basin Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program, a six-country initiative working to address environmental degradation in Central Africa’s forests.

Under the 7th GEF replenishment, GEF-7, Impact Programs (IPs) on Food Systems, Land Use and Restoration (FOLUR); Sustainable Forest Management (SFM); and Sustainable Cities are being developed to address the drivers of environmental degradation, and to support transformational change in these key systems.

One of the world’s most vital ecosystems is set to take a step closer to a sustainable future, with the announcement of a US$63-million programme to stabilize forest cover, peatlands, and wildlife populations across the Congo Basin.

Lowland and swamp forests, forest savannas, and the mighty Congo river make up the 500 million acres of the Congo Basin, the second largest tropical rainforest on the planet. When standing below the trees, the vaulted canopy of leaves blocks out most of the sunlight and traps moisture making a trek along the forest floor dark as night, and very wet.